State of The Language
There are currently an estimated 500 speakers in the Southern Basque Country in Spain, approximately 2% of a population of 21,000 Romanis, and another estimated 500 in France. In Spain the remaining fluent speakers are elderly people mostly over the age of 80; some are equally fluent in Spanish, Basque, or Caló. Middle-aged Erromintxela are mostly passive bilinguals, and the youngest speak only Basque or Spanish. In the Northern Basque Country, however, the language is still being passed on to children. The percentage of speakers among Spanish Erromintxela are higher than 2%, as large numbers of Caló-speaking Romanis moved to the Basque Country in the intense period of industrialisation in the 20th century.
Read more about this topic: Erromintxela Language
Famous quotes containing the words state of, state and/or language:
“But one day he met a man who was a whole lot badder,
And now he’s dead, and we ain’t none the sadder.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion.”
—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)
“the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)